Increasing urbanization, the growing degree of motorization and traffic performance in urban areas and environmental aspects like greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are the motivation for a detailed analysis of personal individual mobility in urban areas, which is presented in this study.
In the first step, the publication examines a study of market potential of new small and lightweight vehicle concepts. A mobility inquiry conducted in a mid-sized European city enables an estimation of the potential user groups for alternative vehicle concepts for individual urban traffic.
In a second step, the CO2 reduction potential of urban car concepts is simulated for a generic vehicle fleet. This fleet consists of conventional vehicles of various classes (subcompact, compact, mid-sized …) as well as new lightweight urban car concepts. A novel vehicle concept for urban transportation will be presented as well.
A comparison with the simulation results of a conventional vehicle fleet shows the potential regarding CO2-reduction and a reduction of parking space by application of future-oriented vehicle concepts. In this way, the publication enables a discussion of the impact of environmental friendly propulsion systems in combination with new, variable vehicle architectures on future city traffic.